Category: Original Video Animation (OVA)

Science fiction stories, and more specifically cyberpunk stories, are by far my favorite type of anime and manga; and one of the grandmasters of the genre would have to be Masamune Shirow. Not only did he unleash the beast that was the Ghost in the Shell franchise to our defenseless eyes, but also brought a helping of Dominion Tank Police, Gundress and even Appleseed. Rest assured, as this blog continues, I will be posting more of his stuff than you can handle.

So, what makes Shirow’s work stand out so much? Despite his foray into erotic pin-up art for the last decade or so, Shirow’s work was essentially the formula that most 80’sand 90’s cyberpunk anime followed. His productions were characterized by sexy leading ladies, philosophical plots, and a procedural police drama flavor. On top of all of this, Shirow is known for his highly detailed level of world building; this is seen most notably in his vehicles, mecha, firearms, and cybernetics.

Before Ghost in The Shell or even Apleseed, Shirow penned a science fiction manga simply called Black Magic. Bandai eventually got the rights, and produced a short OVA (original video animation) based loosely on a small portion of the comic. Hiroyuki Kitakubo also co-directed this piece, and later went on to work on such films as Akira, Gundam: Char’s Counterattack, and Roujin Z usually as a key animator or storyboard director. So here we go – let’s look at Black Magic M-66, one of Shirow’s earliest works!

Black Magic M-66 is the story of a hard-as-nails and usually scantily-clad journalist named Sybil out for the scoop of her career. She learns about a crashed military transport and two lethal combat androids on-board. She assumes that the military is going to battle a “violent, armored thing on the road”, but little does she know, it’s worse. Perhaps because of the crash, or a fault in programming, these mechanical murderers get loose and set out to kill the granddaughter of their own creator. Sybil has a choice, if she wants her big payday, she better protect the girl from the bots.

The plot essentially boils down to a prolonged chase scene that somewhat reminded me of the first Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator film. M-66 is like the Terminator and has been programmed to kill Ferris (Sarah Conner) who is only safe because she is being protected by Sybil (Kyle). Yeah, it lacks the time travel plot and other aspects, but the similarity is there. I wish that Black Magic M-66 could have been a tad longer, because the plot really gets rolling about 10-15 minutes into the movie, and rushed to the ending from then on. To me, It needs a bit more breathing room.

This video has a lot of what I like to call “the pervy side of Shirow”. I mentioned earlier, that Shirow basically exclusively produces erotic pin up art ever since he completed his manga Ghost in the Shell II: Man Machine Interface. People thinking that this career turn is a new thing, need to go back and watch Black Magic M-66. Not only is Sybil’s very first scene one where she is not wearing any clothes, but other characters seem to be border-line nudists as well. Ferris, The aforementioned granddaughter in question, walks around in what I can best describe as her underwear with shoes on for a good chunk of her early scenes.

A special nod goes out to the way the android M-66s are designed and their “fighting style”. When they finally are spotted by the military and engaged, the inhuman,near animalistic way in which they move is almost unsettling. The “male” M-66, which meets a grizzly end by way of military might towards the beginning of the feature, is vaguely monkey like and sticks to the ground, whereas the “female” M-66 lumbers around shooting things with laser eyes and retracting knives as fingers. These monstrosities really bring this film into it’s own,and keep the whole thing full of “on the edge of your seat moments”.

Before I sat down to write this, I had never actually seen this anime for some reason. I think this boils down to the scarcity of the older Manga Entertainment DVD when I used to work at a retail store, and my unwillingness to spend large amounts of money on it. I believe the older DVD was released in 2001, and it wasn’t until a few months ago that a new company, Maiden Japan, re-released it minus any English dubbing. If in a pinch, I bet you could find it on any popular video sharing site, but I don’t condone that due to an actual American license, but whatever floats your boat.

In conclusion, Black Magic M-66 is not as polished as later works from Masamune Shirow, but it still retains a lot of his trademark style. You have the procedural cop drama trope with the military guys, the mecha, the androids, and even the sexy female lead. All it’s missing is the philosophical treatment with the plot. If anything, it’s always fun to see where a director honed his chops.

One genre of anime that was definitely done better in the past was the romance genre. Today, a lot of productions that could be considered “romance” often have little drive or story to move the plot along. Often times “harem anime” and ”moe anime” dominate the market, and pander to a very select crowd of fans. While there are definitely “diamonds in the rough” many of these shows are soulless commercial money grabs, created to fill time on a TV schedule. We will be discussing a romance show of a different color in today’s review, considering this genre is nearly extinct from anime today – The shounen romance. That’s right folks, today we will be looking at a romantic comedy / drama from the perspective of an eligible bachelor looking for love.

And sticking to the major trope that all teen dramas and comedies are based, everyone is concerned that he is still a virgin at age 19. Women are basically throwing themselves at him due to the way his friends tell everyone at every turn about his plight, and he will have none of it. That is until he meets the love of his life, an old junior high school friend named Masana that moved to Tokyo and became a successful model. It seems she has recently become available, and Kobuta sees this as his chance to make the move that he never had the guts for before.

The main thing I like about Nineteen19 is that it’s told from the point of view of Kobuta, but doesn’t devolve into the over-the-top machismo and borderline misogyny that one could expect from a modern male centered romance story. He’s a stoic dude and somewhat emotional – thus more realistic than what one sees in Hollywood films. While his fling with Masana is somewhat ephemeral, one feels really happy for the guy when everything starts clicking into place. Although I will warn that this anime has a bittersweet ending, I don’t want to give the impression that it’s all lollipops and unicorns for 45 minutes.

Aside from Kobuta and Masana, the cast is not very fleshed out. We get to see both of their respective groups of friends, Masana’s ex-boyfriend, and Kobuta’s boss, but only briefly. Kobuta’s boss is especially strange for his penchant for groping everyone’s hindquarters in a creepy, and yet somehow innocent way. A little bit of explanation for that would have been nice! That’s the problem with older anime OVAs, the short duration (this clocks in at around 45 mins) means that only the most important things get fleshed out. We get to see the romance between the two main characters and that’s all that matters.

One thing that makes this anime significant is the use of music, and more specifically the interesting music video cutaways inter-spliced into the film. This was made in 1990, so you can expect early 90’s club music and contemporary pop of the era. The music was created by Toshiki Kadomatsu, a popular R&B singer and songwriter that has released quite a few albums, and is still releasing music today. Here is a sample of one of the videos:

Nineteen19 is pretty hard to come by. It’s an old, unlicensed, OVA from over twenty years ago, so a domestic DVD release is laughably implausible. The film gained prominence in the early 90’s through anime clubs and tape traders, and is essentially kept alive by them today. I found a fan-sub on YouTube that I have posted below so you can also enjoy the film. It has a few spelling mistakes here and there,but it gets the job done. YouTube has really become the place to find obscure anime such as this, finding this even five years ago would have resulted in hours on torrent sites and other irritations.

Nineteen19 is a slice of life anime that brings a strange sense of nostalgia over me. I was too young to be able to identify with Kobuta at the time, but I think it really brings out what a real relationship can be like. Our culture has left tons of would-be romantics assuming that they should be attempting to re-create scenes from popular Hollywood films to win affections from the other half, a feat that usually will get the person into trouble in real life. This aspirational brainwashing has made people forget what a real romance can be like: false starts, awkwardness, and misunderstandings. If you want to see something different, and enjoy slice of life anime, watch Nineteen19, I think you’ll dig it.

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